On the evidence of page views on the PowerTorque website, there can be no doubt that in Australia we have a trucking industry obsessed with horsepower.
Every time we post up a story with a headline which includes a high horsepower number, we get plenty of clicks on that page. These stories are clearly being passed around on social media, as the clicks continue well after the story is originally posted.
Why is horsepower so important to people, this is the question? Are people obsessed by the wrong thing? What is it that makes a number like horsepower so important to the truck driving experience?
When the horsepower number is written along the side or on the front of a truck, and it is a high number, it is a source of pride for the driver and also a source of envy for other truck drivers. There is an aspiration to drive a higher horsepower truck always present in the culture around driving trucks, which is quite difficult to explain.
Horsepower is actually not the important factor in this but displaying its number on the truck has become important, because of a deep belief by most people that horsepower is the most important metric. Evidence is the phrase, ‘there’s no replacement for displacement’, which has been used for many years by the fans of the diesel engines coming out of the US.
In fact, that feeling of exhilaration and power perceived as coming from higher horsepower is not actually being created by that horsepower in the drive line. It is actually the torque that you can feel. It is the torque which grabs hold of the drive line and accelerates and pushes the 68 tonne vehicle from stationary up to highway speed. It is the torque which gives you that kick in the backside feeling in the driver’s seat. However, we conceive of that feeling in the seat of the pants as horsepower and therefore want a high horsepower number on the door of the truck.
My contention would be that trucking operators should be buying a truck in which the engine offers the best torque for the task and then get the truck manufacturer to put a fictional, but high, horsepower number on the door of the truck to keep the driver happy.
Of course, all of this kind of talk is going to become irrelevant for many truck drivers in the future as the transport industry transitions across to electric power. In fact, the amount of torque available from an electric motor it’s not only high, it’s also available from zero rpm and can give that driver the required feeling in the seat of the pants, when taking off with a heavy load.
However, the caveat here is that you do get the feeling of power or torque, but without any of the internal combustion engine noise, which we associate with that application of power.
For the good of the environment, I reckon it would be a good idea, in the future, to have electric trucks running around our streets but we may have to add a couple of things to keep our drivers happy. We have to include the sound of an internal combustion engine in the sound system within the cab, and write a large horsepower number on the truck door.
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